8 ms·
I worked in the org that Jeanine now runs. It had a series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level. To call out Jeanine and only Jeanin
by throwaway678808 3y ago
I worked in the org that Jeanine now runs. It had a series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level.
To call out Jeanine and only Jeanine in language this harsh feels wrong. From my recollection and from what I have heard from people still working there, she is par for the course.
Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sage76 3y ago> there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse. Are people of specific races to be put beyond criticism?
- llbeansandrice 3y agoIf she is in fact "par for the course" and the failures of that department were at multiple levels then that type of criticism is certainly suspect. I give you a C- at attempted strawman though.
- 0xbadcafebee 3y ago[flagged]
- namtab00 3y agoPost author never mentioned her race, HN commenters did.
- alargemoose 3y agoThis seems like a bizarre mid-representation of GPs point. They sated she was “par for the course” for that department. Meaning everyone was bad, not just her. And found it concerning she was the only person they singled out.
- heyoni 3y agoThe author worked under her at least during their time working on flutter; which was their most recent experience at google.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- electriclove 3y agoPretty much yes if you want to stay employed. Hixie can speak up now because he left.
- 0xbadcafebee 3y agoThe department could be one of those "wilderness" assignments where you send somebody you don't wanna fire but also don't want to have a big impact. A useful place to help someone develop their executive leadership skills, or keep those with really bad skills from wreaking havoc.
- sjkoelle 3y agoThank you - also why target someone who has been there for only 2 years.
- ludwik 3y agoIt seems she, being his direct manager, was a large part of the reason he decided to leave after 18 years. There is probably a lot of anger and frustration. I do agree this part of the post could have been phrased better.
- biggc 3y agoWhere does the author say that this VP is his direct manager?
- ludwik 3y agoIt's Ian Hickson - the co-creator and lead of the entire Flutter project. He described her in his post as "Jeanine Banks, who manages the department that somewhat arbitrarily contains (among other things) Flutter, Dart, Go, and Firebase". As the head of Flutter he would be directly underneath her in the corporate hierarchy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mpalmer 3y agoWhile I don't think mentioning her by name was necessary (she's just an example of the culture of bad middle management he's calling out), I do think highlighting her race as a meta-criticism does neither the OP nor Banks herself any favors. My rule of thumb: unless given an obvious reason not to, assume good faith on the part of individuals.
- jLaForest 3y agoPretending racial disparities doesn't exist (particularly in tech) doesn't do any favors either.
- nitwit005 3y agoActing like race determines everything isn't exactly the healthiest strategy either. Ultimately we're discussing assuming someone is a racist because they said something negative about a person of a different race. That assumption is also a racial stereotype.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoNo, there's two levels to this. The dickishness/meanness of singling someone out by name in a public article on the Internet, which is what the comment here was primarily about. And then the second level, which the commenter deliberately downplayed as a minor second point (but people here jumped on it...) that said person is a minority, so it makes one extra-suspicious about motives. So I'm not sure where you got this "acting like race is about everything" point, because that wasn't in the comment.
- marknutter 3y agoLet’s just never criticize anyone who isn’t white, and treat them like children. Racism is solved!
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
- screye 3y ago> series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level Isn't that exactly the job of an org executive? To hire and align competent senior leadership ? I don't think he is criticizing her in particular as much as the archetype that she represents. She is a person who has never had a coding job & spent her early career quite far from the people who write code. I can't for the life of me figure out why you would put someone like that in charge of google-dev relations. That's a premier-IC-turned-leader position if I've ever seen one. No wonder she doesn't have a strategy. That's a terrible match for a hire.
- chatmasta 3y ago> I can't for the life of me figure out why you would put someone like that in charge of google-dev relations. One possibility is that the person who put her in that position has an incentive for Flutter/Dart to fail.
- ruszki 3y agoThey just don't care. Btw, it's very funny to see projects, which were predestined to fail, because they send their shittiest, and somehow they became better, and slowly more important than the executives star projects. There are meetings in such cases (I was part of such projects and meetings, several times), after almost everybody should be fired immediately, if you want anything good for the company. But of course, most of the employees of large, and old companies don't care anymore about products, or their respective companies.
- 93po 3y ago> They just don't care. This seems likely. Google makes 90% or some very high percent of their money from ads. I doubt there is any focus on on comparatively small side projects
- ob-gyn 3y ago[flagged]
- 3y ago
- caskstrength 3y ago> Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse. Unless I misunderstood the author she was his manager. It is not like he chose some random "black woman in leadership at Google" to attack.
- makeitdouble 3y agoBut then, why point at "her department" when they are both in it ? My read is she's not in author's direct hierarchy line.
- fastball 3y agoThe author has worked the last 9 years on Flutter. Banks is the VP of "Developer X", which is the department that "owns" Flutter.
- chairhairair 3y agoYour read is incorrect.
- nostrademons 3y agoShe was a few levels up, but in his management chain.
- wetpaws 3y ago[dead]
- eigenvalue 3y agoSeems more reasonable to me to focus on the head of the division since she has ultimate authority over it. Any incompetent people below her in the org structure are her responsibility. If they’re so bad, why didn’t she realize that and remove them? If you don’t ever want to be criticized then you shouldn’t seek out top management positions. He was also very critical of Sundar, is that also wrong because it could hurt his feelings? As for why he felt the need to air his dirty laundry like this, he must feel extremely aggrieved.
- booleandilemma 3y agoWhich race would have made the "targeted attack" better?
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago[flagged]
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoI had the same reaction. I'm ex-Google, but never worked in that org or heard of her ever but it seemed in profound bad taste (or just mean?) to me to be pinpointing people by name like that. I'm not sure what it accomplishes, unless there is a vendetta at work here? Also seemed out of tone with the rest of the article, which I agreed with the substance of and enjoyed reading.
- averageRoyalty 3y agoWhy is there a presumed intent to "accomplish" anything? It's a blog post.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 0xbadcafebee 3y agoHaha! I've never heard anyone say "blog posts are pointless" out loud but it's true
- serial_dev 3y agoCalling her out by name felt a bit harsh within the context of the post. Sure, call out Sundar as he's a public figure, but this lady, never heard of her, never seen her. He could have made the point by writing "I had this terrible boss who had no idea about anything and...", her name is irrelevant to demonstrate the issue of decline at Google.
- progbits 3y agoMaybe it was too much, but one counterpoint: if horrible managers never get called out how are you supposed to know to avoid them / how will they face consequences? I understand authors frustration, I've experienced the same in the past but could not voice this beyond just some close friends and coworkers (who knew it already anyway), for fear of repercussions. I've since left but of course this person remains, and from what I hear is still as bad. Outsiders might join that organization unaware of this. Others working with those teams might not know this and can get burned by it. Was this particular call out justified? I don't know. But I don't think it is inherently bad.
- cavisne 3y agoI think the right/ethical move is to identify your organization (ie Flutter) and not name anyone specifically. I agree completely with the article, but naming someone publicly makes the author seem like they are living in a bubble. Ie in their world the head of their org is a public figure, but hardly anyone knows what Flutter is let alone the org structure.
- caminante 3y agoWhy would the author single out Flutter if their critique is broader? It's not a monolith organization. Google re-structured as a conglomerate (Alphabet). They're critiquing culture/values. Further, if they were to single out Flutter, wouldn't the target be evident?
- CrimsonRain 3y agoIt is the right thing to do. Flutter team losing someone like Hixie is a big loss to everyone. It is very much possible Tim also left Flutter because of her. This terrible manager has nothing to contribute compared to that. I hope other googlers speak up.
- lurker919 3y ago[flagged]
- andromeduck 3y agoShe's their boss.
- DannyBee 3y agoI'm staying out of all of this, but i'll opine on the legal side - defamation requires statements of fact and not opinions. To the degree his rant deals with facts - like claiming someone did or did not do a thing, that's at least possibly actionable. But the opinions are not actionable as defamation. So for example: "bob murdered someone" - actionable "i don't like bob" - not actionable. Depending on what gets said, etc, it may be actionable as something other than defamation.
- Vt71fcAqt7 3y agoSo you think he left a (very) well paying job, working on a project that he created and has been building for nine years, one that he is now working on for no pay, just because a black woman became his manager? I dare say you are subconsciously biased, perhaps consciously biased. Subconsciously biased in that you won't even allow yourself to consider the possibilty that a black woman could be a bad manager, so bad that it would cause a prolific engineer like Ian to leave, and consciously biased in that you then actively jump to resolve your subconscious bias' flaw with reality with racism.
- SadCordDrone 3y ago[flagged]
- unix_fan 3y agoAs a person of color who is also disabled, I find bringing race into the discussion to be reductionist. It reduces the individual to the skin color, which is just as bad as what you accuse others of doing. People shouldn’t be judged based on whether there are enough black women at Google.
- ot1138 3y ago> there aren't a lot of other white men in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse. Reverse racism is just racism.
- Cheezewheel 3y ago>Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but I find that hard to believe.
- eklavya 3y agoAnd this is why it's getting incredibly difficult to have open honest discussions. It has to be about somebody's identity credentials somewhere. So tired of this nonsense.